Gathering devices such as perfect binders, saddle stitchers and mailroom inserters may use hoppers or feeders to collect sheet material. A saddle stitcher or perfect binder may for example collect folded printed materials fed from hoppers or feeders onto a saddle or perfect binder conveyor, respectively, to form a magazine or other printed product.
A saddle stitcher may collate signatures to assemble complete sets of signatures and bind them together using stitches. The signatures are opened to the centerfold and collated by feeding mechanisms onto a saddle raceway to be conveyed past a stitching mechanism. These bound signatures, or books, are then removed from the saddle conveyor for further processing, such as trimming the unbound edges.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2005/0225023 discloses a device for transporting printed products that permits removal of signatures from a saddle conveyor. A first conveyor moves a plurality of folded signatures in a first direction and a second conveyor includes a rotating blade device for lifting a signature from the first conveyor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,260,145 discloses a tucker blade mechanism that contacts the folded edge of the signature from below the saddle conveyor. The tucker blade mechanism moves the signature forwardly and upwardly from the saddle conveyor as it moves in a vertical plane through a path, which is oblique relative to the saddle conveyor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,141 discloses a method and device for conveying signatures from a blade chain conveyor supporting the signatures directly at a fold line. The signatures are gripped from above by orbitally-rotating clamping pads, which then transfer the signatures to a belt conveyor perpendicular to the blade chain conveyor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,772,195 discloses a gathering and wire stitching machine for producing magazines, booklets and similar products from folded printed sheets comprising a conveyor path including a gathering segment and an adjoining wire stitching segment, the conveyor path including a saddle-shaped support for receiving printed sheets in a straddling arrangement from feeders arranged along the gathering segment.